A Restless Night
by Ssnakey-B
Summary: Something is disturbing Squall's sleep. Something he used to find mundane is now terrifying to him, and he needs to find out why. Rinoa is referred to as Linoa due to this being what she's called in the French verison of the game, the one I grew up with. Written for the 2019 Successor Challenge.


It was the middle of the night and Linoa drifted back awake. Bundled up in bed, her eyes remained closed and she could hear the calming taps of the rain against the windows. She could hear thunder in the distance, the low, quiet rumble was oddly relaxing. As she often did during these short interludes where sleep gave way to drowsiness, she rolled over to bunch up against Squall, but was surprised when her arm caught nothing.

She patted around the bed, trying to find him, but still her hand found nothing but pillows, bedding and covers. Reluctantly, she resorted to opening her eyes and sat up. Sure enough, Squall was nowhere to be found. As she looked around, she eventually noticed light filtering in from the edges of the bedroom door. "Huh? Did Squall get up? Did he have trouble sleeping?"

This struck her as odd as unlike her, who had a tendency to sleep in short cat naps and fully wake up later, Squall usually slept in one full sessions and woke up bright and early, completely refreshed. And on the few occasions she did catch him waking up during the night to go use the bathroom or something, he usually didn't bother turning on the lights. She decided to get up and check on him.

_What if he got a sudden call from Cid? _she wondered as she stepped towards their living room . _I hope there isn't an emergency._

However, she couldn't hear him talk to anybody, and as she entred the room, she realized it had nothing to do with any such thing. Squall was lying in their couch, a headset around his ears, from which she could faintly hear music, and Angelo fast asleep on his chest. He had his hands behind his head and bobbing slightly to the music. He would have looked peaceful if he hadn't been frowning.

_Then again, it's hard to tell if it means anything or if that's just how he looks_, Linoa observed to herself. _Well, at least it doesn't look like anything bad is going on. But still, it's a bit weird._

"Squall?" she called. No reaction.

"Squa-aaaaall!" she tried a little louder and taking a step forward.

This time, it caught his attention. He opened an eye and after seeing Linoa, he slid the headset around his neck and repositioned himself slightly so he could rest on his elbows and look at Linoa, waking up Angelo in the process.

"Hey, Linoa! Is everything alright?" he asked.

"Yeah. I was about to ask you the same," she answered while making her way to the couch. Squall bent his knees to make room for her. Angelo yawned as her mistress sat down. "Something wrong? Are you having trouble sleeping?" Linoa asked softly while carressing Squall's brow with the back of her fingers. Squall closed his eyes and gave the slightest of smiles.

"Yeah. I figured if I wasn't gonna sleep anyway, I might as well get up instead of rolling around angrily and wake you up as well," he explained. Linoa chuckled.

"Aw, that's sweet." She'd noticed the music Squall had been listening to was at full volume. She grabbed one of the headphone's cuffs and held it up. "Since when do you like to listen to loud music? Usually, if anything you come here to escape the noise," she asked him.

"I don't know," he started to answer. "For whatever reason, I..." thunder cracked, causing him to gasp and turn towards the window in shock. Linoa was surprised by his reaction, and even moreso when she noticed how heavily he was breathing. Even Angelo looked at him in worry.

"Squall?" Linoa asked while placing a hand on his leg. "I didn't know you were afraid of thunder."

"Neither did I," he replied. "I never was before. It's not so much the thunder as the lightning, but the noise makes it so much harder to ignore it. I don't know why all the sudden..." he rubbed his face with his hand. Linoa looked at him in silence, trying to find the words to reassure him. "I hate this. I feel like I'm losing control of my own mind!"

Linoa was at loss, but she was determined not to leave him like that. She breathed in heavily, assumed an enthusiastic smile and bowed slightly towards him. She patted his leg to catch his attention and he turned his head towards her. She looked right into his eyes, their darkness already appeasing him.

"Hey, kitten, you'll be alright!" she said. "For starters, stop looking at that!" she added and with a downward wave of her arm, she closed all the blinds in the room. "Now, I have a proposal for you."

"Okay," Squall answered, not sure what to expect.

"If you weren't afraid of thunder before, something must have changed, right?" she questioned.

"Right."

"So since we already have a bit of a psychic link, maybe I can use my powers to try and figure out what it is."

Squall pondered her offer for a moment. It's true that she's been gaining more and more control over her abilities, he thought. But still, is it okay for me to use her powers for my own sake? I know she'd find it silly to think it's even up for debate when she's the one offering it, but I can't help but be a bit uncomfortable.

He turned back to her. "Isn't it a bit risky? I mean, if it's something that's messing me up so bad, it could end up hurting you too, couldn't it?"

Linoa smiled. "Kitten, I'll just be taking an outside look. I'll see if I can find anything that would explain it. I think it could help you a lot. We could at least get a lead and see where to go from there."

Squall considered her argument. Just an outside look, huh? He looked back at her. "Alright, but promise me you'll be careful, okay?"

Linoa chuckled again "You make it sound like your mind is some sort of nightmarish wasteland!"

Squall smiled back. "It's just that you have a knack for getting yourself into trouble by trying too hard to solve everyone's problems."

Linoa reeled back a little, but her smile didn't leave her face. "You know, you're lucky that I know you well enough to realize you probably meant that as a compliment. Anyway, let's get started." Linoa patted Angelo's butt to get her to climb down. The dog obeyed but didn't look happy about it.

"I'm sorry, Angelo," said Linoa, "but I need to make sure there's no interference between Squall and me. Can you imagine if I blasted your doggy mind into Squall's brain?!"

Angelo whimpered and pawed at the couch.

"You can come back and lie on Daddy later," Linoa negotiated. Angelo scurried away and went to lie down a bit further. Linoa shook her head and went back to look at Squall, leaning over him. Hz was very amused by her struggles with the dog, until another crack came out alongside light filtering from behind the blinds. Linoa immediately put her hand to the left side of his head, gently moving it away from the windows and back to her.

"Look at me, Squall," she said, looking right into his pupils. "Focus on me. Listen to my voice and let yourself go. There's nothing but you and me."

As she talked, the corners of Squall's vision started to fade away, as did all sound but Linoa's voice. Soon, there was indeed nothing but the two of them, standing surrounded by a black void.

"Whoa... that's something else," commented Squall. "So what do we do now?"

"I don't really know," Linoa admitted. "I was kind of hoping we'd see something right away. Maybe you should try and think of thunder and see what happens."

She barely had time to finish that sentence, when they noticed something glow in the distance.

"What's that?!" Linoa exclaimed aloud.

"Let's find out," Squall suggested.

They walked carefully among the dreamscape, the flickering light growing larger as they got closer. Eventually, they got close enough to realise, without surprise, that the light game from thunder bolts. Coming closer still, Squall took a step back, distressed by the scene he saw, with Linoa holding his arm in an attempt to reassure him.

What they saw was two creatures. The first was a misshapen beast, a sort of werewolf or dog covered in yellow fur. It was tall, stood on its hind legs and wore a long white cape. Its right arm ended in a long, sharp blade. With his left arm, he repeatedly struck the other creature with lightning. As it cackled, Squall and Linoa noticed that its face was split in two from the top of its head all the way to its chin.

The second creature was far more familiar to Squall; purple fur, white mane, red claws and horns and a pair of large feathered wings, it was a lion. It displayed the same gash as the dog-like being. And while this animal usually gave an impression of might, here it made a rather pathetic display. Its legs were chained to the floor and its wings tied to its body with heavy chains, making it barely able to move. All it could do was roar and grunt with every shock. Squall could not stand this seemingly gratuitous assault and dashed to intervene.

"Squall!" screamed Linoa as she saw him run into danger.

"Enough!" yelled Squall as he placed himself between the two animals. The dog did not answer. He charged another bolt and Squall froze as he saw the electricity run along its arm. His entire body was trembling, unable to do anything but watch. Only when the animal cast its spell was Squall able to move again, curling up in fear on what was to come.

However, the electricity did not hit him. Instead, it went right through him and hit the bound lion. Squall was still shaking, when a soft hand slid into his own. He turned his head and found Linoa, who managed to calm him down enough to get him to move away from the scene.

"What... what happened?" asked Squall.

"I'm not sure, I've never done this before," answered Linoa. "But I'm guessing that because this is your imagination, we cannot interact with it. Like I said, we're only taking an outside look. All we can do is observe it and try to understand."

Squall looked back at the animals. "Tell me what you know! Come on, tell me what I want to hear!" ordered the dog to the lion while waving its bladed arm. Linoa placed her hand on Squall's cheek and got him to look at her. "Squall, do you want to stop?" she asked him.

"No, I want to know what's going on," he replied. "I want to know why this is in my head, and why I couldn't move. I shouldn't be paralyzed in fear by something like that. I've faced way worse danger without flinching. I can't let this get to me like that."

As much as he dreaded it, Squall turned back to the frightful display. The dog spoke again: "This can end anytime you want. I just need you to answer my question."

Squall looked at the lion, distraught by the fact he couldn't do anything to help it. Linoa felt him tense up and once again tried to comfort him by grabbing his arm.

"Why did it end up like this? It didn't use to be this way," spoke the lion for the first time. However, Squall noticed that its mouth wasn't moving.

"Linoa? Can you hear it? The lion?" he asked.

"No," she answered. "Are you hearing it talk?"

"I'm not entirely sure if 'talk' is the right word, but I am hearing it speak," Squall attempted to explain. "It's like I'm hearing its thoughts."

"Then listen well!" Linoa advised him. "It could be very helpful!"

Squall closed his eyes and focused. The poor creature was struck again. _Even if I were willing to talk, what am I supposed to tell him when I don't know the answer he's looking for? _it thought.

_Wait, this starting to feel all too familiar_, thought Squall. _This isn't just a dream, is it? It's..._

He was interrupted by another spark. This time, it wasn't just the light or the noise. He had actually felt it. Or rather, he remembered feeling. He shook and started screaming.

"Squall, what's wrong?!" Linoa asked in alarm. The dog kept shocking the lion over and over, each bolt causing a flash before the darkness returned. As Linoa tried to calm Squall down, she began to see the scene change every time the light from the electricity came back. The monsters seem to take on more humanoid shapes, the slices in their heads started to shrink, the lion, while still chained, was being lifted and around them, walls appeared and the floor took on a more precise texture, all of it made of steel.

"Squall, please! Answer me!" she pleaded. The monsters had now had almost fully human appearances, they even gained new clothing and to her horror, she recognized the two men, especially after the gashes finished their transformations into scars in the middle of each one's face.

"You're a SeeD! You have to know something!" said Seifer, pointing his gunblade towards Squall, not the man Linoa had taken here, but a memory of him, hanging from a bizarre contraption with no purpose other than suffering, being watched with tears down his face by the man he had become. Linoa now realized where they were: it was the room where they had found him in the desert prison, and she was seeing what had happened to him before that. Seifer motioned towards someone she couldn't see, and the shocks started again. Both Squalls started screaming and twitching, and Linoa immediately took them both back to consciousness.

Squall sprung up with a loud gasp and saw Linoa looking right at him with tears in her eyes. With a sigh of relief, he grabbed her in his arm and started straddling her and sobbing.

"I'm so sorry, Squall," Linoa whispered in his ear.

"Don't be, Linoa. Don't be," Squall replied, looking her in the eyes and holding her head . "We did exactly what we set out to. We found out where this whole thing came from."

"But it made you suffer so much! You relived all those painful memories! I had no idea that had happened to you!"

"It's okay. It was scary but like you said, it was just an outside look. If anything, I feel better now that I know."

Linoa paused for a moment, scanning Squall's face. "Are you just saying that to make me feel b-hmph!"

She didn't have time to finish that sentence as Squall suddenly kissed her. They both started to relax, their tense muscles loosening up a bit. Squall pulled back, they smiled at each other and she rested her forehead against his.

"Okay, now I believe you," said Linoa.

"I never did tell you exactly what had happened in the prison, huh?"

Linoa looked back at him "I can't blame you. It must have been such a horrifying experience, you probably didn't want to relieve it."

Squall made Linoa slide out of his lap and sat beside her, looking in the distance. "I don't know," he said. "I never even really thought about it afterwards. I guess there were so many things going on at the same time, my mind couldn't process all of them." He paused for thought "But then again, maybe I just did the usual thing and tried to pretend it didn't bother me."

Linoa slid her fingers between Squall's. He looked at her hand in his and smiled again. "I think I'll ask Kadowaki what to do about it tomorrow."

Linoa's eyes widened in both surprise and relief. "Huh, it wasn't too long ago that you wouldn't have even considered that," she said. "W, bell, just know that I'm always with you if you need to talk. Or just therapeutic cuddles!"

"I know," Squall answered. "You always are, and I think that's the only thing that helps me keeping it together."

"Aw, Squall..."

Meanwhile, Angelo approached them timidly, not to make sure of her humans' reactions.

"Right, I think it's about about time we all went back to bed, isn't it?" asked Squall.

"Yeah, let's," answered Linoa.

They started making their way back to the bedroom, when Squall grabbed Linoa and lifted her in a bridal carry.

"Ah! Squall!" exclaimed Linoa.

The thunder was still roaring outside, but for whatever reason Squall didn't seem to notice. All three of them got back in bed. As promised, Angelo got to go back to using Squall as a pillow. However, before they all drifted back to sleep, Linoa still made sure to cast a spall on the room so neither the noise nor the light could get to them. She wanted to make sure Squall got a good rest. He needed it.

THE END

* * *

Hey, everyone! Looks like it's time for the yearly Successor Challenge! This is my entry for this years theme, "Spark". I've actually had this concept in my mind for quite a while now and I thought it was particularly fitting. I wanted to explore how the things that happened to the gang, and especially Squall, during the events of the game probably affected them far more than we see. This ended up getting quite a bit darker than I expected, but I hope you all enjoyed it. Please feel free to comment, review and give any advice you think might help my future works, it's always appreciated.

And finally, big thanks to Kayuki for being a beta reader!


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